Letting Go of Mellanby

Today, the St. Louis Blues announced that Scott Mellanby, former Canucks scout and front-office member, has joined the club and will act as the team’s assistant coach in the coming season.

The question now is… Why did Mike Gillis let go of Scott Mellanby?

Scott Mellanby was brought in tot he Canucks organization by Mike Gillis as a seemingly dark horse. Someone who worked at the players level, someone who garnered huge respect amongst the players and acted as a leader.

My take on this situation is: 

1) Given the respect he has, Mellanby is owed the opportunity to move his career forward. And it didn’t look as though he was going to get that opportunity immediately with the Canucks.

2) Maybe… just maybe… Scott Mellanby didn’t bring enough to the Canucks table to be effective within the organization.

A week ago, I said that the Canucks should consider letting go of chief scout Ron Delorme and offer the role to Mellanby. While I still maintain that Delorme is not cutting it as Chief Scout, it is clear that Mellanby was either not happy in that role, and was not prepared or ready to move in to a more important scouting role.

By moving to a coaching position, Mellanby obviously wanted to be closer to the action and couldn’t do that with the Canucks.

We’ll see if Mike Gillis thinks out of the box again to bring in a replacement for Mellanby.